Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I had a wonderful weekend with my sisters in California, but I forgot to put the memory card back in my camera before I left, so I don't have pictures! I would rather post something about our fun time together when I get copies from my sisters:)

So, for now, I will talk about the fun night Scott and I had. We both got home from work around 9PM. While I was out of town, Scott purchased a net...to catch FROGS!!! As soon as we got home, we changed our clothes, and shoes...we didn't want to get our good shoes muddy...grabbed our headlamp, flashlight, camera, and net and headed to the pond next to our apartment. Scott got the idea in the middle of the night after constantly waking up to the noisy bullfrogs. Anyway, we headed out, geared up and ready to catch some frogs. It is so hard to spot them at night! We would shine the light until we spotted one, then hold it there to blind them while the other person with the net jumped at it to catch it. And it worked!!! Three times! We were out for about an hour and a half, and successfully put three in the same box. We caught about 5 more, but they all escaped:( oh well. Three was good enough for us! Have you ever tried putting a frog in a box after there was already a frog in it? Its tough. They are all jumping everywhere! They all escaped, but we made sure we weren't near the pond so we were able to get them all back in the box. It was a fun little adventure. Can't wait to do it again!!! Here are some pictures:)The first one we caught, while trying to put it in the box.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

My parents have three dogs. Scott's parents have two dogs. My brother has two dogs. My friend Megan has two dogs. Our old neighbors in Utah were moving out of their place because they bought a dog. And now, living in Indiana, everyone in the apartment complex seems to have a dog!!! We have been wanting a dog for so long! But we always lived in a place that did not allow pets. Now that we are here, I really want to get one. But we will be moving to St. George at the end of August and would have to find a place that would allow a dog there. Should we get one now? Or should we wait until St. George??? We will probably end up with a German Shepherdbut we have also been looking at Akitasand Black Mouth Cursand RottweilersWe want a big friendly dog that loves to play outside with us. What do y'all think? We'd love ideas of other dogs to look into. And should we get one now? or wait to make sure we are able to find a place in St. George? Is finding a place that allows dogs really that difficult?

Monday, May 11, 2009

Ok, so I know I have already written FOUR, yes, four posts today, but this is the last one about our wonderful trip! So, make sure to look at the other ones too! They will probably be more entertaining than this one, although this one will still be fun for me to write:) Sunday was our last full day in the Dominican Republic, so we decided to rest as much as possible this day. We had already had way too much fun in the past few days, so we just slept in, then laid on the beach, by the pool, and anywhere we could find. Here is Scott looking oh so good.These guys were snorkeling and caught an octopus!The bay, the beach, the ocean.Scott and I sunbathing on the beach.Getting a dominican massage.The dog that napped under my chair.One of the many sand crabs we saw on the beach.Scott and I on the beach.I missed rock climbing in Utah...so I climbed a prickly tree instead.A pretty cool tree.Scott and I waiting for the shuttle to pick us up to catch our flight home to Utah.Scott and I had a blast in the Dominican Republic. We would recommend this trip to anybody and everybody! There is tons of stuff to do if you want adventure and entertainment, or plenty of space to just relax. We loved our time there and can't wait to bring our own family back some day!

We had a blast at Paradise Island on Friday, and just as much fun at Ocean World on Saturday. which was kind of surprising. Scott didn't really want to go at first, but I convinced them because it would give us something to do, and we got 60 dollar tickets for free. But of course we slept in before we headed out for the afternoon. We loved all of the rest we got on this trip! We're lucky we got it before our rough week that followed. oh yeah! Back to Ocean World. It is the Dominican's version of our Sea World...it was fun! We started off by going to the shark show! Scott said they were just gummer sharks, but I didn't care. I still thought they were cool. The pet trainers entertained us with facts and shark jokes for an entire 30 minutes:)After the shark show, we headed down to check out the dolphins! People are able to pay extra to swim with the dolphins, but we didn't have an extra $300 for the two of us:) So we just watched instead. It was fun! Rather than sitting in an auditorium, you stand on a pier with the dolphins swimming directly underneath you. One dolphin in particular, was hanging out by Scott and I. He would talk to us and was playing with us. Then one of the animal trainers threw him a ball, so he got distracted playing basketball!From here, we went to the Tiger Grotto...It was a cave like swimming pool with tigers swimming in it! We swam on one side of a wall of glass, and the tigers were on the other side. And probably hungry too. They were pacing back and forth near Scott:)After our swim with the tigers, we headed towards the bird sanctuary. They had Macaws, parrots, toucans, and love birds. They were so pretty! The first cages with the macaws, parrots and toucans, were cool but the birds wouldn't get near humans. But in the love bird cage, they attacked us! It was fun. They sat on us, ate food right out of our hands, even tried to steal our sunglasses! We then went to watch a sea lion show, and a bird show before our shuttle came to They would have two people from the audience pick to different numbers. Then the animal trainer would hold up the two different numbers. So the first number was 7, so the trainer showed 7 fingers. The next number was 5, so 5 fingers were held up. Then the parrot walked over to a bell and rang it 12 times! It was sweet! Ocean world was a lot of fun. It was a great day.

On friday, we spent the extra money and went to Paradise Island! It was a LONG bus trip from our resort to the beach where we would take a speedboat out to the island, but it was worth it. Even if we did get sick. It was fun to drive around the island and see how the people there really live. After a couple of hours, we finally arrived on the beach and put on some really smelly life jackets.We climbed in the boat and road a a ways out to the island. Sorry we don't have any pictures from that! But on our way out...some HUGE storm clouds came and decided to rain on us:( Fortunately, we were in our swim suits! We got to Paradise Island, which is essentially just a sand bar in the middle of the sea, with only some man made huts on them. Not even a single tree! We ate some fresh pineapple and relaxed for a bit before out snorkeling adventure. But here is a picture of the island where Columbus first landed when we came sailing this way:) The tourists call is Paradise Island, but the natives call it isle de isabela.We brought an underwater camera with us, so we have those pictures, but we forgot to bring a regular camera too! We ran out of pictures while we were still snorkeling and didn't get pictures of everything we wanted to, but these ones are still fun. Here they are!I have a few things to say about these pictures. They were alot more colorful in person. These underwater cameras don't do them justice. Also, we discovered that these cameras are hard to aim when you are wearing gigantic goggles on your face!

Anyway, while snorkeling, we were able to bring out some bread with us to feed the fish! They ate right out of my hands until I screamed underwater and had to come up for air:) I am such a baby! But Scott did so much better. Here are the schools of fish we fed.When we finally left the island, the boat took us along the coast of the Dominican Republic to see the mangroves! Those things are cool! One time, while watching Man VS. Wild, we watched Bear Grylls chop his way threw those things. It was a crazy episode! And we got to see them in person:)We got back to the main island, ate lunch in a little restaurant, and headed back on another long bus ride back to the resort. It was a fun trip out to Paradise Island, but we were tired, and ready to eat at a Mexican restuarant, El Zorro, that night. We showered and dressed up for dinner, which was delicious. They had the most amazing dessert too! We shared a churro, but not the typical churro you find in the states. It didn't have cinnamon on it, but rather the most delicious chocolate sauce and pudding that we have ever had. It was to die for! It rained again while we were eating dinner. That was fun, because all of the restaurants aren't closed in. They have roofs and small fences, but other than that, it's more like a pavilion to eat under. So we had a romantic dinner in the rain.

Even though it rained off and on all day, we still had a great time and are glad we were there.